


Stars

by Tesmi



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcoholism, Character Study, Emotional feelings, Hangover, Minor mention of blood, Other, Sadness, Soberity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-24
Updated: 2013-01-24
Packaged: 2017-11-26 18:14:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/653041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tesmi/pseuds/Tesmi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life alone in your mother's big mansion is lonely. Sometimes, it can be too much to bear. </p>
<p>-<br/>A short drabble about a day in Roxy's life, before sburb.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stars

Three a.m. You’re up again. Everything is a haze of black and violet. The alarm clocks beeps an eternal reminder of the time. It’s been 7 p.m for four years. 

You don’t know how you know what the actual time is. You just do.  
You always do.

However, the length of time you've been laying cocooned in your blankets is immeasurable. The air smells thickly of dying orchids and the decaying waste of pumpkins. You wrinkle your nose and inhale through your mouth. You can only hold your breath for half a minute, but that’s enough time to crawl out of the bed and stumble blindly into the hallway. Glass litters the floor; the sharp glitter from the light hitting its clear visage penetrating your darkness, seeking to give you a warning. Glancing at your bare feet (and almost falling over in the process) you decidedly stumble in the other direction. In heinsight, this is good. This direction is the on which you wanted to go. Your second favorite room in the house is this direction. The room where you sit on the edge of your all-to-often bathtub-used-as-a-bed. Where you curl up in the corner and put your head between your knees.

Where you can scream and fear not that a broken memory of yourself might hear.

Today you sit on the toilet and lean on your legs. Thin legs- chalky skin on shapeless thighs. Ugly. The toilet is your friend. Your personal porcelain throne. It offers you a place to lean and hang your head when the sickness racks your body. If not a comforting physical being- at least you can pretend. If you concentrate hard enough, you can feel the consoling hand on your back. Holding back your hair. Working comforting circles on the sharp, jutting angles of your shoulder blades. At least you can pretend.

You always can.

It takes you twenty minutes of internal debate to determine weather you’re going to vomit. Your mind sways before you decide that you aren't instead, another half an hour is spent sprawled belly-down on the floor. The cold tile is soothing. It soaks into your warm skin, drains the color from your pink lips, pink face. Now it’s as white as the rest of you. You twist on your side and hug your arms, suddenly freezing. Urgent fingers tap short poems in a indiscernible language on the skin of your arm.

_Little girl, alone, she waits,_

_She holds her doll, it cries,_

_It tells her beautiful little lies,_

_She waits, she waits alone,_

_For no one, no one is coming home._

The silence is too much. You have to get to your feet; it’s another hour before you do. Five am. braving the glass in the hall, you wince when you pay the toll. You don’t like red. It’s like wine, spilled on your carpet. Leading a trail to you. Maybe all of those metaphors about being what you consume are true.

Maybe you are bleeding red and the wine comes from you.

It occurs to you that you are naked. A bra, too small now, hurts your breasts, but the straps slide down your shoulders. Hangs from your ribs. You massage your flesh tenderly, but can’t feel your own touch. Hollow, like ghost hands.

The bright, attention commanding lights beckon. Weather your name or the name of another, you don’t know. You answer anyways. Fingers curl around the mouse and guide the cursor to the little yellow icon at the bottom of your screen. You wonder if Dirk’s on. The thought, however brief, makes you laugh humorlessly.

He is. He always is.

Like night and day, you and him. He seems to deprive strength from things that make you weak. He makes light of the things that plague your nightmares. He is so strong, so strong, when you are so weak. So very, very weak.

Sometimes you wish he was fake. Just a figment of your imagination.

Sometimes you think he does, too.

The trouble is that you sometimes think you love him. Sometimes, you hate him. He is all you have, and yet he is not yours. You are not sure if you want him to be. Sometimes you spend all day sobbing because you don’t have him. There is no real, romantic interest shared between the two of you. At least, none that he reciprocates. Thinking of him makes you want to do things you know you shouldn't do with someone you don’t love. Thinking of him sometimes makes you hate yourself.

You don’t pester him. Like wise, your screen remains undisturbed. It’s an unspoken agreement between the two of you that these are the quiet hours. You know he won’t be at his computer, anyways. He knows you’re only just capable of using yours. Specifically, on days like this. On days like this part of you wants to talk to him the most. You want to be consoled, and held by the arms of his lofty orange text.

On days like this, you know he is incapable of giving you what you want.

Your back aches. Sitting in the computer chair is too much. You don’t want to go back to bed. You debate the roof, but it’s cold outside. You debate sleep again, but you fear perhaps the nightmares might come for you again. You don't have the strength to fend them off- at least, not right now. Maybe you can force yourself to get into a mood to work on your writing. 

The thought makes you think of your mother, and you try not to acknowledge the strangled sound you make in your throat at the thought.

Teetering to the kitchen is painful. The soles of your feet still sting, but the notion of tending to the wound doesn't strike you. There's no desire for food in your stomach, only a painful gurgle when you notice a wine glass, half filled, sitting on the counter. Smirking, inviting. A green fruity smelling substance that brushes up against the edges of the dip of the glass when you wrap shaking fingers around the base and lift. You press the glass to your lips.

You shiver, and shake.

You set it back down. 

Sitting on the floor in the main room helps to calm your quaking bones. From down here, you can see a good number of the wizards that are displayed all over the walls and ceilings of your house. You think perhaps this is some sort of passive aggressive gesture from your mother. It's not your fault you legitimately enjoy these wispy old men. It has a dream of yours since a child to meet one, in real life. 

To meet a real person, with skin not as cold as your own. Not as porcelain, and delicate. Perhaps they are not pretty, but they are sturdy. They have powers you could only ever dream of. They simply have to conjure a spell, and with a wave of a wand, with the sway of a hand, they can solve all of their problems.

It leaves a bitter taste of envy in your mouth. 

Leaving the blurry shapes of the baleful eyed men you head back up the stairs. This time, your course is not for the bathroom. You head instead up to the observatory. The stairs are short but it feels as if it takes an eternity to ascend. Your steps are heavy and roll around your head like thunder. When you reach the top, the air is thin, and cold. You feel like it chips away at your thin shell, as your chest tightens. It threatens to crack you. You are almost afraid that you might break. 

Naked skin had went from a soft pink to a cotton blue. Light, soft, and you almost like this contrast better. Your finger tips are still a raw, bright red. The walls of the observatory are dark, and gray, and uninviting. You are almost tempted to turn around and leave. But the soft white light of the stars beckons you forward. 

You don't have the coordination to use the telescope. Instead, you curl up by the open window- your knee just barely brushes against the clear glass- and turn your gaze to the outside. Dark, dark dark. The only lights are the millions of little white stars that litter the sky. Like someone has broken a glass on the earth and the shards are scattered all over the endless expanse. The comparison to you is cold, but it is beautiful. It is painfully familiar. 

Your home seems like a tiny spot in a large world of nothing. You, alone in this void, are the only something. Sometimes you question weather you are an actual reality or not. Weather, were you to disappear, it would have an consequence on anything but the space you once inhabited. Would anyone be the wiser? 

You stare at the stars, so small. In reality, they are ten times bigger than they appear. You know this from hours of pointless attempts at education. You know a variety of other useless facts- the fastest animal alive, the world's deepest ocean, post HIC and after. The list went on. 

Stars, you think to yourself now, look small. They are not. They are powerful gas giants, with enough energy to sustain billions upon billions of lives. With their own gravitational pull, ferocious enough to pull in planets. Huge, powerful masses of rock and gas. 

A star is a powerful thing that appears tiny to everyone else. There are millions, and yet, none within the same galaxy as another. Sometimes, you wonder, if stars get lonely. 

Sometime in your thoughts you fall asleep. When you wake up, you see the smiling face of the sun just only breaking the horizon. 

The thin rays of beige washes over you and thread warm fingers into your hair. You tip your head into it's touch, but do not close your eyes. The sight of the sun creeping over the horizon fills your stomach with a strange feeling. The words on a piece of paper, stuck to the fridge with a large magnetic W, written in small purple cursive, come to you now. 

Don't give up. There's always another day to look forward to. 

You can do this, love. I believe in you.

Your lips turn up at the corners; you smile into the start of the next day. 

**Author's Note:**

> sobs


End file.
